SummarySince the mid-nineteen century life expectancy in developed countries has doubled, increasing from levels around 40 years to above 80 years. This research project is motivated by the need to further explore how societies have achieved the current levels of longevity, in terms of life expectancy and modal age at death. To achieve this, age-patterns and time-trends in cause of death contribution to longevity are assessed. This historical analysis is carried out in fifty developed and developing countries/areas. It is expected that the cause of death contribution to the advancement of longevity is country/region specific. However, the hypothesis to be tested is that there are common cause-specific time-trends across countries which can be described by a model of cause of death contribution to longevity. Several purposes for such a model can be listed: it will allow us to study expected future mortality directions in developed nations that are currently still facing high levels of some particular causes of death, e.g. the Netherlands and United States. It could also help investigating the retrocession in mortality observed in some transitional countries/areas, particularly in Eastern Europe. Finally, the accelerated epidemiological transition in developing countries is compared to the slower trend in the developed world at earlier times, model results versus observed cause-contribution. The interest in the latter comparison is to foresee the increase in the prevalence of chronic disease in low-income countries predicted by the WHO and the World Bank. Furthermore, one in every three countries in the world has adequate cause-specific mortality data. The proposed model could facilitate estimating the current cause of death status in developing countries. This project addresses a significant question concerning the mechanisms (age and cause of death) that direct reductions in mortality.

Since the mid-nineteen century life expectancy in developed countries has doubled, increasing from levels around 40 years to above 80 years. This research project is motivated by the need to further explore how societies have achieved the current levels of longevity, in terms of life expectancy and modal age at death. To achieve this, age-patterns and time-trends in cause of death contribution to longevity are assessed. This historical analysis is carried out in fifty developed and developing countries/areas. It is expected that the cause of death contribution to the advancement of longevity is country/region specific. However, the hypothesis to be tested is that there are common cause-specific time-trends across countries which can be described by a model of cause of death contribution to longevity. Several purposes for such a model can be listed: it will allow us to study expected future mortality directions in developed nations that are currently still facing high levels of some particular causes of death, e.g. the Netherlands and United States. It could also help investigating the retrocession in mortality observed in some transitional countries/areas, particularly in Eastern Europe. Finally, the accelerated epidemiological transition in developing countries is compared to the slower trend in the developed world at earlier times, model results versus observed cause-contribution. The interest in the latter comparison is to foresee the increase in the prevalence of chronic disease in low-income countries predicted by the WHO and the World Bank. Furthermore, one in every three countries in the world has adequate cause-specific mortality data. The proposed model could facilitate estimating the current cause of death status in developing countries. This project addresses a significant question concerning the mechanisms (age and cause of death) that direct reductions in mortality.

Max ERC Funding

300 380 €

Duration

Start date: 2010-05-01, End date: 2015-04-30

Project acronymMOS

ProjectManifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century

Researcher (PI)Mette Birkedal Bruun

Host Institution (HI)KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2012-StG_20111124

SummaryThe objective of Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century is to demonstrate how the creation of zones of unworldliness within the world structures re-ligious practice. We will examine withdrawal in its historical settings and uncover the facetted na-ture of this phenomenon in the seventeenth-century religious culture, thus offering insights and tools for a better understanding of the representation of religious experience in European culture.
Working across cultural and confessional boundaries, the project explores appropriations of the appeal that the Christian be in the world but not of the world: in texts, architecture, images and mu-sic, and it examines the ways in which these media are employed to prompt and sustain with¬drawal from the world. The project focuses on ten institutional social units (e.g. the abbey, the Konventikel, the household), which manifest solitude in different ways. It examines such units through ten exem-plary places (e.g. Herrnhut, Saint-Cyr) and their cultural and reli¬gious life, drawing on materials such as architectural plans, interior decoration, treatises on theology and aesthetics, letters, diaries, epitaphs, emblems, portraits, devotional images, sermons and musical pieces.
The backbone of the project is an innovative strategy for interdisciplinary analysis which traces the generation of a symbolically charged space around religious withdrawals. With this analytical tool we will examine how symbols of ‘world’, ‘solitude’ and the demarcation between them are materialized in forms ranging from material culture (architecture, furnishing), via artistic, perfor-mative expressions (devotional images, musical pieces) to literary topoi and metaphors and the in-fluence on such forms of contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The project examines the cultivation of the religious self: shaping a sym¬bolically charged space – and shaped in turn by this space.

The objective of Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century is to demonstrate how the creation of zones of unworldliness within the world structures re-ligious practice. We will examine withdrawal in its historical settings and uncover the facetted na-ture of this phenomenon in the seventeenth-century religious culture, thus offering insights and tools for a better understanding of the representation of religious experience in European culture.
Working across cultural and confessional boundaries, the project explores appropriations of the appeal that the Christian be in the world but not of the world: in texts, architecture, images and mu-sic, and it examines the ways in which these media are employed to prompt and sustain with¬drawal from the world. The project focuses on ten institutional social units (e.g. the abbey, the Konventikel, the household), which manifest solitude in different ways. It examines such units through ten exem-plary places (e.g. Herrnhut, Saint-Cyr) and their cultural and reli¬gious life, drawing on materials such as architectural plans, interior decoration, treatises on theology and aesthetics, letters, diaries, epitaphs, emblems, portraits, devotional images, sermons and musical pieces.
The backbone of the project is an innovative strategy for interdisciplinary analysis which traces the generation of a symbolically charged space around religious withdrawals. With this analytical tool we will examine how symbols of ‘world’, ‘solitude’ and the demarcation between them are materialized in forms ranging from material culture (architecture, furnishing), via artistic, perfor-mative expressions (devotional images, musical pieces) to literary topoi and metaphors and the in-fluence on such forms of contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The project examines the cultivation of the religious self: shaping a sym¬bolically charged space – and shaped in turn by this space.

Max ERC Funding

1 250 000 €

Duration

Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2017-03-31

Project acronymNEWCONT

ProjectNew Contexts for Old Texts: Unorthodox Texts and Monastic Manuscript Culture in Fourth- and Fifth-Century Egypt

Researcher (PI)Hugo Lundhaug

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITETET I OSLO

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2011-StG_20101124

Summary"Using recently accessible Coptic monastic texts, new philology, and cognitive theories of literature and memory, this project aims to shed important new light on the production and use of some of the most enigmatic manuscripts discovered during the last century, namely the Nag Hammadi codices, together with the highly similar Berlin, Bruce, Askew, and Tchacos codices. This will be done by interpreting the contents of the codices as they are preserved to us in their Coptic versions primarily within the context of fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monasticism and contemporary Coptic texts. This approach constitutes a decisive shift away from interpretations of the hypothetical Greek originals of this material within hypothetical first, second, or third century contexts all over the Mediterranean world, to a focus on the context of the production and use of the texts as they have been preserved in actual manuscripts. The project will approach the material from a New Philology perspective on manuscript culture, implying a focus on the users and producers of the extant manuscripts, and on textual variants, rewriting, and paratextual features as important clues. From this point of view, the project will also employ cognitive theories of literature and memory in order to illuminate early monastic attitudes towards books, canonicity, and doctrinal diversity in the context of monastic literary practices of copying, writing, memorization, and recitation, and the interfaces between orality and literacy. The project will thus combine new and traditional methodologies within a multi-disciplinary theoretical framework, thus bringing fresh theoretical and historico-philosophical approaches to bear on a traditionally methodologically conservative field of study, and has the potential to radically alter our picture of early Christian monasticism, manuscript culture, and doctrinal diversity."

"Using recently accessible Coptic monastic texts, new philology, and cognitive theories of literature and memory, this project aims to shed important new light on the production and use of some of the most enigmatic manuscripts discovered during the last century, namely the Nag Hammadi codices, together with the highly similar Berlin, Bruce, Askew, and Tchacos codices. This will be done by interpreting the contents of the codices as they are preserved to us in their Coptic versions primarily within the context of fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monasticism and contemporary Coptic texts. This approach constitutes a decisive shift away from interpretations of the hypothetical Greek originals of this material within hypothetical first, second, or third century contexts all over the Mediterranean world, to a focus on the context of the production and use of the texts as they have been preserved in actual manuscripts. The project will approach the material from a New Philology perspective on manuscript culture, implying a focus on the users and producers of the extant manuscripts, and on textual variants, rewriting, and paratextual features as important clues. From this point of view, the project will also employ cognitive theories of literature and memory in order to illuminate early monastic attitudes towards books, canonicity, and doctrinal diversity in the context of monastic literary practices of copying, writing, memorization, and recitation, and the interfaces between orality and literacy. The project will thus combine new and traditional methodologies within a multi-disciplinary theoretical framework, thus bringing fresh theoretical and historico-philosophical approaches to bear on a traditionally methodologically conservative field of study, and has the potential to radically alter our picture of early Christian monasticism, manuscript culture, and doctrinal diversity."

Max ERC Funding

1 475 143 €

Duration

Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2016-12-31

Project acronymnextDART

ProjectNext-generation Detection of Antigen Responsive T-cells

Researcher (PI)Sine Reker Hadrup

Host Institution (HI)DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), LS6, ERC-2015-STG

SummaryOur current ability to map T-cell reactivity to certain molecular patterns poorly matches the huge diversity of T-cell recognition in humans. Our immune system holds approximately 107 different T-cell populations patrolling our body to fight intruding pathogens. Current state-of-the-art T-cell detection enables the detection of 45 different T-cell specificities in a given sample. Therefore comprehensive analysis of T-cell recognition against intruding pathogens, auto-immune attacked tissues or cancer is virtually impossible.
To gain insight into immune recognition and allow careful target selection for disease intervention, also on a personalized basis, we need technologies that allow detection of vast numbers of different T-cell specificities with high sensitivity in small biological samples.
I propose here a new technology based on multimerised peptide-major histocompatibility complex I (MHC I) reagents that allow detection of >1000 different T-cell specificities with high sensitivity in small biological samples. I will use this new technology to gain insight into the T-cell recognition of cancer cells and specifically assess the impact of mutation-derived neo-epitopes on T cell-mediated cancer cell recognition.
A major advantage of this new technology relates to the ability of coupling the antigen specificity to the T-cell receptor sequence. This will enable us to retrieve information about T-cell receptor sequences coupled with their molecular recognition pattern, and develop a predictor of binding between T-cell receptors and specific epitopes. It will ultimately enable us to predict immune recognition based on T-cell receptor sequences, and has the potential to truly transform our understanding of T cell immunology.
Advances in our understanding of T cell immunology are leading to massive advances in the treatment of cancer. The technologies I propose to develop and validate will greatly aid this process and have application for all immune related diseases.

Our current ability to map T-cell reactivity to certain molecular patterns poorly matches the huge diversity of T-cell recognition in humans. Our immune system holds approximately 107 different T-cell populations patrolling our body to fight intruding pathogens. Current state-of-the-art T-cell detection enables the detection of 45 different T-cell specificities in a given sample. Therefore comprehensive analysis of T-cell recognition against intruding pathogens, auto-immune attacked tissues or cancer is virtually impossible.
To gain insight into immune recognition and allow careful target selection for disease intervention, also on a personalized basis, we need technologies that allow detection of vast numbers of different T-cell specificities with high sensitivity in small biological samples.
I propose here a new technology based on multimerised peptide-major histocompatibility complex I (MHC I) reagents that allow detection of >1000 different T-cell specificities with high sensitivity in small biological samples. I will use this new technology to gain insight into the T-cell recognition of cancer cells and specifically assess the impact of mutation-derived neo-epitopes on T cell-mediated cancer cell recognition.
A major advantage of this new technology relates to the ability of coupling the antigen specificity to the T-cell receptor sequence. This will enable us to retrieve information about T-cell receptor sequences coupled with their molecular recognition pattern, and develop a predictor of binding between T-cell receptors and specific epitopes. It will ultimately enable us to predict immune recognition based on T-cell receptor sequences, and has the potential to truly transform our understanding of T cell immunology.
Advances in our understanding of T cell immunology are leading to massive advances in the treatment of cancer. The technologies I propose to develop and validate will greatly aid this process and have application for all immune related diseases.

SummaryIn allergic asthma, an important health problem, disease is driven by allergen-specific Th2 immune responses. Differentiation of Th2 cells depends on their early interactions with antigen presenting cells, such as dendritic cells (DCs), and cytokines are crucial for this process. Osteopontin (Opn) was originally identified as an important cytokine for Th1 immunity and autoimmunity. Our group recently demonstrated that Opn is highly expressed in the lungs of asthmatic patients and of mice with Th2-mediated allergic airway inflammation. Our work revealed anti-allergic effects of Opn on airway disease during secondary pulmonary antigenic challenge mediated by regulation of DC subsets. In addition, intranasal administration of recombinant Opn during pulmonary exposure to the allergen protected mice from allergic airway disease suppressing all features of disease, recruitment of Th2 cells and allergen-specific Th2 responses. Our previous experiments, as well as preliminary studies presented in this proposal, point to an important novel immunoregulatory role for Opn in the Th2 setting. However, most aspects of the Opn-mediated immune mechanism of protection remain unclear. With this proposal, we aim at elucidating the immunoregulatory/protective mechanisms of Opn utilizing immunologic, molecular and genomic approaches as well as in vivo mouse models of allergic airway inflammation. We propose to investigate the mechanisms mediating Opn-effects on: (1) DC subsets and Treg cells that confer protection during pulmonary allergen challenge (2) recruitment and function of allergen-specific Th2 (generated during sensitization) as well as of newly-activated Th effector cells and their interactions during pulmonary allergen challenge and (3) antigenic tolerance induction in the Th2 setting. The studies proposed here will provide new insight into the biology of Opn-dependent regulation of DC subsets, Th2 responses and DC-T cell interactions opening new important questions in im

In allergic asthma, an important health problem, disease is driven by allergen-specific Th2 immune responses. Differentiation of Th2 cells depends on their early interactions with antigen presenting cells, such as dendritic cells (DCs), and cytokines are crucial for this process. Osteopontin (Opn) was originally identified as an important cytokine for Th1 immunity and autoimmunity. Our group recently demonstrated that Opn is highly expressed in the lungs of asthmatic patients and of mice with Th2-mediated allergic airway inflammation. Our work revealed anti-allergic effects of Opn on airway disease during secondary pulmonary antigenic challenge mediated by regulation of DC subsets. In addition, intranasal administration of recombinant Opn during pulmonary exposure to the allergen protected mice from allergic airway disease suppressing all features of disease, recruitment of Th2 cells and allergen-specific Th2 responses. Our previous experiments, as well as preliminary studies presented in this proposal, point to an important novel immunoregulatory role for Opn in the Th2 setting. However, most aspects of the Opn-mediated immune mechanism of protection remain unclear. With this proposal, we aim at elucidating the immunoregulatory/protective mechanisms of Opn utilizing immunologic, molecular and genomic approaches as well as in vivo mouse models of allergic airway inflammation. We propose to investigate the mechanisms mediating Opn-effects on: (1) DC subsets and Treg cells that confer protection during pulmonary allergen challenge (2) recruitment and function of allergen-specific Th2 (generated during sensitization) as well as of newly-activated Th effector cells and their interactions during pulmonary allergen challenge and (3) antigenic tolerance induction in the Th2 setting. The studies proposed here will provide new insight into the biology of Opn-dependent regulation of DC subsets, Th2 responses and DC-T cell interactions opening new important questions in im

Max ERC Funding

1 511 200 €

Duration

Start date: 2009-12-01, End date: 2015-11-30

Project acronymOSSMA

ProjectMultiple Systems of Spatial Memory: Their role in Reasoning and Action

Researcher (PI)Marios Avraamides

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2007-StG

SummaryThe goal of the proposed project is to examine how the locations of the objects that constitute our environments are represented in memory and how such memories are used to support our actions in space. During the last three decades of research this topic has received a lot of attention by scientists from many disciplines, and over the years a number of theories have been formulated. However, our understanding of the nature and functioning of spatial memory still continues to change. More importantly, there exist empirical findings from two concentrations of research within spatial cognition that seem conflicting at first glance. On one hand, studies examining the organizational structure of spatial memory have shown that memories are encoded using allocentric reference frames; that is reference frames that encode the spatial relations among the objects of an environment. On the other hand, studies focusing on how people stay oriented towards their surroundings during locomotion suggest that egocentric representations (i.e., representations coding self-to-object relations) are involved. Recent models of spatial cognition have attempted to reconcile these findings by proposing multiple systems for spatial memory. In this project we will carry our a series of experiments in an attempt to gather empirical data to test the predictions of various theoretical models including a biologically-plausible two-system account of spatial memory that we have recently proposed (Avraamides & Kelly, in press). Drawing heavily from the literature on Stimulus-Response compatibility, this account combines the use of egocentric and allocentric representations to account for a wealth of data from all areas of spatial cognition.

The goal of the proposed project is to examine how the locations of the objects that constitute our environments are represented in memory and how such memories are used to support our actions in space. During the last three decades of research this topic has received a lot of attention by scientists from many disciplines, and over the years a number of theories have been formulated. However, our understanding of the nature and functioning of spatial memory still continues to change. More importantly, there exist empirical findings from two concentrations of research within spatial cognition that seem conflicting at first glance. On one hand, studies examining the organizational structure of spatial memory have shown that memories are encoded using allocentric reference frames; that is reference frames that encode the spatial relations among the objects of an environment. On the other hand, studies focusing on how people stay oriented towards their surroundings during locomotion suggest that egocentric representations (i.e., representations coding self-to-object relations) are involved. Recent models of spatial cognition have attempted to reconcile these findings by proposing multiple systems for spatial memory. In this project we will carry our a series of experiments in an attempt to gather empirical data to test the predictions of various theoretical models including a biologically-plausible two-system account of spatial memory that we have recently proposed (Avraamides & Kelly, in press). Drawing heavily from the literature on Stimulus-Response compatibility, this account combines the use of egocentric and allocentric representations to account for a wealth of data from all areas of spatial cognition.

Max ERC Funding

500 000 €

Duration

Start date: 2008-10-01, End date: 2013-06-30

Project acronymTransOcean

ProjectTransoceanic Fishers: Multiple mobilities in and out of the South China Sea

SummaryIn recent years, China’s and Vietnam’s militarized and subsidized fishing fleets have begun to shift their radical marine harvesting techniques, and accompanying trade, from the South China Sea to Africa and Oceania. Scholarly analysis has largely assumed that fishers are instruments of their states’ geopolitical agendas, responding to regulations and incentives. This both obscures the actual motivations and modalities of fishers’ expansion of their fishing grounds and downplays the transoceanic networks connecting different fishers beyond state territories and localized fishing grounds in past and present. Charting this spike in maritime trespass, TransOcean will analyze and theorize how individuals and groups of fishers move in and out of legal and illegal, state and non-state categories of fisher, poacher, trader and smuggler, and how the emergent mobilities of Asian fishers interact and collide with those of Pacific and African fishers.
Deploying the innovative concept of relational and shifting multiple mobilities and employing thalassographic analysis, TransOcean develops a novel theoretical and methodological framework of fishers as mobile maritime actors who exploit their multiple occupations, incomes and networks to pursue transoceanic expansion. TransOcean studies, for the first time, diverse groups of interconnected fishers outside of territorially bounded fisheries and area studies, by analyzing mobilities beyond sea-borne migration or diasporic settlement. Though multi-scalar and globally oriented TransOcean remains firmly rooted in fine-grained ethnography, with a focus on Vietnamese and Chinese and African and Pacific fishers in specific on-shore nodal points, connected by the growing Sino-Vietnamese demand for illicit seafood. Thus, TransOcean breaks new methodological and theoretical ground for tackling intractable marine problems of significant scientific and policy value.

In recent years, China’s and Vietnam’s militarized and subsidized fishing fleets have begun to shift their radical marine harvesting techniques, and accompanying trade, from the South China Sea to Africa and Oceania. Scholarly analysis has largely assumed that fishers are instruments of their states’ geopolitical agendas, responding to regulations and incentives. This both obscures the actual motivations and modalities of fishers’ expansion of their fishing grounds and downplays the transoceanic networks connecting different fishers beyond state territories and localized fishing grounds in past and present. Charting this spike in maritime trespass, TransOcean will analyze and theorize how individuals and groups of fishers move in and out of legal and illegal, state and non-state categories of fisher, poacher, trader and smuggler, and how the emergent mobilities of Asian fishers interact and collide with those of Pacific and African fishers.
Deploying the innovative concept of relational and shifting multiple mobilities and employing thalassographic analysis, TransOcean develops a novel theoretical and methodological framework of fishers as mobile maritime actors who exploit their multiple occupations, incomes and networks to pursue transoceanic expansion. TransOcean studies, for the first time, diverse groups of interconnected fishers outside of territorially bounded fisheries and area studies, by analyzing mobilities beyond sea-borne migration or diasporic settlement. Though multi-scalar and globally oriented TransOcean remains firmly rooted in fine-grained ethnography, with a focus on Vietnamese and Chinese and African and Pacific fishers in specific on-shore nodal points, connected by the growing Sino-Vietnamese demand for illicit seafood. Thus, TransOcean breaks new methodological and theoretical ground for tackling intractable marine problems of significant scientific and policy value.

Max ERC Funding

1 499 989 €

Duration

Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31

Project acronymUNIVERSAL HEALTH

ProjectEngaged Universals: Ethnographic explorations of ‘Universal Health Coverage’ and the public good in Africa

Researcher (PI)Ruth Jane Prince

Host Institution (HI)UNIVERSITETET I OSLO

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2017-STG

SummaryUNIVERSAL HEALTH is an anthropological study that follows how a new global policy, Universal Health Coverage (UHC), travels and is engaged by policy-makers, bureaucrats and citizens in three African countries. Defined by the WHO as ensuring that all people can use the health services they need without financial hardship, UHC is a powerful concept that approaches public health as a matter of justice and obligation and is included in the Sustainable Development Goals. UHC is particularly important in Africa, where structural-adjustment policies undermined state capacity, promoted privatization and pushed the burden of payment onto the poor. Recent global health initiatives have done little to address the neglect of national health-care systems and citizens’ lack of trust in them. In these contexts UHC is interesting because it reinserts questions of state responsibility and the public good into health-care. Historically however, African states have only partially pursued the public good, while in practice UHC is surrounding by conflicting interests. UHC is thus not a universal model but a contested field, making it an intriguing site for anthropological research. With a focus on actors and institutions at global, national and local levels in each country, the project will explore how moves towards UHC engage relations between states and citizens and universal concepts such as the public good; how UHC intersects with formal systems of social protection; and how it influences informal social networks that support health, thus situating UHC in national histories and social practices. Tracking the frictions surrounding UHC at the levels of policy-making, implementation, among beneficiaries, and in public debate, the project will use ethnographic methodology in innovative ways through fieldwork that is multi-sited and multi-level. The project’s focus on a global policy and the public good opens new research directions and will produce knowledge of relevance beyond Africa.

UNIVERSAL HEALTH is an anthropological study that follows how a new global policy, Universal Health Coverage (UHC), travels and is engaged by policy-makers, bureaucrats and citizens in three African countries. Defined by the WHO as ensuring that all people can use the health services they need without financial hardship, UHC is a powerful concept that approaches public health as a matter of justice and obligation and is included in the Sustainable Development Goals. UHC is particularly important in Africa, where structural-adjustment policies undermined state capacity, promoted privatization and pushed the burden of payment onto the poor. Recent global health initiatives have done little to address the neglect of national health-care systems and citizens’ lack of trust in them. In these contexts UHC is interesting because it reinserts questions of state responsibility and the public good into health-care. Historically however, African states have only partially pursued the public good, while in practice UHC is surrounding by conflicting interests. UHC is thus not a universal model but a contested field, making it an intriguing site for anthropological research. With a focus on actors and institutions at global, national and local levels in each country, the project will explore how moves towards UHC engage relations between states and citizens and universal concepts such as the public good; how UHC intersects with formal systems of social protection; and how it influences informal social networks that support health, thus situating UHC in national histories and social practices. Tracking the frictions surrounding UHC at the levels of policy-making, implementation, among beneficiaries, and in public debate, the project will use ethnographic methodology in innovative ways through fieldwork that is multi-sited and multi-level. The project’s focus on a global policy and the public good opens new research directions and will produce knowledge of relevance beyond Africa.

Max ERC Funding

1 484 797 €

Duration

Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31

Project acronymVIRUSES AND RNA

ProjectRNA regulation during viral infection

Researcher (PI)Troels Kasper Høyer Scheel

Host Institution (HI)KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET

Call DetailsStarting Grant (StG), LS6, ERC-2018-STG

SummaryViral infections are responsible for significant morbidity and mortality and frequency and impact of epidemics are expected to increase. Thorough understanding of basic virology is critical for informed development of prevention and control. Most systematic studies of virus-host interactions have focused on proteins, however, with recent methodological advances the intersecting fields of viral infection and RNA biology hold great promise for basic and therapeutic exploration. The goal of this application therefore is to discover and dissect RNA-based virus-host interactions and related regulatory mechanisms of gene expression.
Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) fine-tune gene expression by repressing mRNA targets. However, cellular miRNAs increase translation and replication of certain viruses. Thus, hepatitis C virus (HCV) critically depends on the liver specific miR-122, which emerged as a therapeutic target. Further, HCV sequesters enough miR-122 to indirectly regulate cellular gene expression. I hypothesize that this RNA-based mechanism contributes to virus induced liver cancer, and aim to address this using our recently developed rodent model for HCV infection (Aim 1). Better understanding of viral RNA (vRNA) interactions could significantly contribute to basic infection biology and novel therapeutics. I therefore aim to systematically identify vRNA interactions with other cellular RNAs and proteins (Aim 2). I expect to identify interactions of value for functional regulation and therapeutic targeting. I finally hypothesize that translation of certain cellular mRNAs – similarly to viruses – increase upon miRNA binding, and aim to systematically screen for such virus-like alternative regulation, with potential to change understanding of post-transcriptional regulation (Aim 3).
In conclusion, this high-risk high-gain project has potential to shape novel dogmas for virus and RNA biology and to identify novel RNA-based therapeutic targets; a promising upcoming field of discovery.

Viral infections are responsible for significant morbidity and mortality and frequency and impact of epidemics are expected to increase. Thorough understanding of basic virology is critical for informed development of prevention and control. Most systematic studies of virus-host interactions have focused on proteins, however, with recent methodological advances the intersecting fields of viral infection and RNA biology hold great promise for basic and therapeutic exploration. The goal of this application therefore is to discover and dissect RNA-based virus-host interactions and related regulatory mechanisms of gene expression.
Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) fine-tune gene expression by repressing mRNA targets. However, cellular miRNAs increase translation and replication of certain viruses. Thus, hepatitis C virus (HCV) critically depends on the liver specific miR-122, which emerged as a therapeutic target. Further, HCV sequesters enough miR-122 to indirectly regulate cellular gene expression. I hypothesize that this RNA-based mechanism contributes to virus induced liver cancer, and aim to address this using our recently developed rodent model for HCV infection (Aim 1). Better understanding of viral RNA (vRNA) interactions could significantly contribute to basic infection biology and novel therapeutics. I therefore aim to systematically identify vRNA interactions with other cellular RNAs and proteins (Aim 2). I expect to identify interactions of value for functional regulation and therapeutic targeting. I finally hypothesize that translation of certain cellular mRNAs – similarly to viruses – increase upon miRNA binding, and aim to systematically screen for such virus-like alternative regulation, with potential to change understanding of post-transcriptional regulation (Aim 3).
In conclusion, this high-risk high-gain project has potential to shape novel dogmas for virus and RNA biology and to identify novel RNA-based therapeutic targets; a promising upcoming field of discovery.

SummaryIn various parts of East Asia, aquatic mammals are associated with divine power, and serve as objects of devotion. In south and central Vietnam, cetaceans are worshipped as life-saving deities. In some Japanese coastal areas, the spirits of whales are venerated during ritual ceremonies. In China, Cambodia and the Ryukyu Islands, aquatic mammals have all been associated with water deities. These animals continue to carry significant symbolic capital today – if no longer as gods, at least as local “heritage” and symbols of nature conservation, acquiring new meanings in the context of secularisation, (forced) displacement, and environmental degradation.
Whales of Power is concerned with the comparative study of human-cetacean relations in maritime East Asia, as expressed in popular worship practices and beliefs. We will examine several of these traditions in different parts of the region, through a combination of historical and ethnographic research. Our main hypothesis is that changes in local worship traditions reflect changes in human-nature relations, which are caused by wider social, economic and environmental developments. Thus, marine mammals and associated worship practices serve as a prism, through which we approach human responses to socio-economic and environmental change in Asian coastal communities.
The innovative character of Whales of Power lies in the ways in which it combines state-of-the-art theoretical approaches from different disciplinary backgrounds in order to reach new understandings of the ways in which human-nature-god relations reflect social and environmental changes. It has three important theoretical objectives: 1) apply recent theoretical developments associated with “environmental humanities” to the comparative study of popular religion; 2) reconsider the role of local worship traditions in the Asian Secular Age, examining the new meanings attributed to ritual practices; and 3) establish a new comparative paradigm in Asian studies.

In various parts of East Asia, aquatic mammals are associated with divine power, and serve as objects of devotion. In south and central Vietnam, cetaceans are worshipped as life-saving deities. In some Japanese coastal areas, the spirits of whales are venerated during ritual ceremonies. In China, Cambodia and the Ryukyu Islands, aquatic mammals have all been associated with water deities. These animals continue to carry significant symbolic capital today – if no longer as gods, at least as local “heritage” and symbols of nature conservation, acquiring new meanings in the context of secularisation, (forced) displacement, and environmental degradation.
Whales of Power is concerned with the comparative study of human-cetacean relations in maritime East Asia, as expressed in popular worship practices and beliefs. We will examine several of these traditions in different parts of the region, through a combination of historical and ethnographic research. Our main hypothesis is that changes in local worship traditions reflect changes in human-nature relations, which are caused by wider social, economic and environmental developments. Thus, marine mammals and associated worship practices serve as a prism, through which we approach human responses to socio-economic and environmental change in Asian coastal communities.
The innovative character of Whales of Power lies in the ways in which it combines state-of-the-art theoretical approaches from different disciplinary backgrounds in order to reach new understandings of the ways in which human-nature-god relations reflect social and environmental changes. It has three important theoretical objectives: 1) apply recent theoretical developments associated with “environmental humanities” to the comparative study of popular religion; 2) reconsider the role of local worship traditions in the Asian Secular Age, examining the new meanings attributed to ritual practices; and 3) establish a new comparative paradigm in Asian studies.